Tag: nasa

Today, I spent hours listening to the synchronized “live” mission audio of the Apollo 11 mission on wechoosethemoon.org, a project of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. A few moments ago, Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

I mixed those last few minutes with Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage”, a.k.a Dark Side of the Moon.

Today is July 20th and it signifies a very important day in the history of mankind. It is the day we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and, in many ways, the culmination of the advent of the technology age. 40 years ago today, we began a journey into space that has not receded (though we have not recently returned to the surface of the moon).

Much is being made of this anniversary today. WeChooseTheMoon.org, a fascinating real time re-enactment of the mission, including the days leading up to the pivotal moment, is a project of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

It was Kennedy, in an address to a joint session of Congress in 1961, that called on Americans, with a specific mandate to NASA, to put a man on the moon by the end of that decade. An excerpt of this speech:

Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides–time for a great new American enterprise–time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

<snip>

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

Since then, the United States and the world have gone through vast technological breakthroughs, often in greater haste than the 8 years it took to put a man on the moon. For instance, consumer electronics continue to progress at a staggering speed, particularly with the advent of the iPhone.

The internet burgeoned from a 5 hours monthly dial-up plan with AOL to saturation of broadband in many areas of the world.

Companies like Google continue to harness computing power to create vast databases of information.

@technosailor Come and visit me! Just ask for HMI on SDO. They all know me – I am the cutest instrument on SDO plus I am the one tweeting!

The war of cuteness is on at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where the team is working on a variety of space projects including the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Hubble servicing mission.

I had a chance to visit NASA yesterday for a very intimate tour of the projects they are working on and to discuss, among other things, future missions NASA plans to embark on.

My tourguide, Steph Stockman, is playing an integral part in the development of LRO which will be launched later this year. LROs mission is to go into low polar orbit around the moon for at least a year and gather intel about the surface of the moon in preparation for a return to the moon somewhere in the 2017 timeframe.

A fascinating tidbit I learned about LRO is that there will be a laser-sight, of sorts, that will essentially focus on a fixed point in space (satellite?), or at least a known point in space. This will provide a reading that will allow LRO to stay in orbit over the moon. We currently don’t know entirely what the surface of the moon looks like, so where typical orbiters might be able to use the surface of, say, the earth as known quantity, NASA will have no such luck with the moon.

Also of interest is that the dark side of the moon is registering significant amounts of Hydrogen which indicates a potential for water. At this point, we don’t know and the LRO is expected to provide some of that data.

Later in the day, we explored the concept of a manned mission to Mars. Steph thinks that might not be for 50 years as certain scientific problems have yet to be solved. Specifically, once a human body spends sustained amounts of time outside of the earth’s magnetic field, what happens? To provide perspective, the moon is on the outer fringes of the earth’s magnetic field and dips in and out at different points in its orbit. As a result, most, if not all, of manned space flight has occurred within the magnetic field and no one really knows what it would be like outside.

To explore this problem, Goddard has a anti-magnetic sphere (pictured below as a scale model) where the earth’s gravity is counteracted by an equivalent polarization allowing for an anti-magnetic zone for testing. One wonders how this affects the iron in a human’s blood stream.

Another problem with a manned mission to Mars is that the planets move at different speeds through orbit, and such a mission with future technology would probably take two years to complete. A mission would have to be launched at such a point that allows the most efficient route to and from Mars. People much smarter than me, scary folks with pencils, will have to figure out that math.

Thanks, Steph, for the tour. Can’t wait to see the LRO launch. :) Click on the montage below for the full photoset from this tour.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. Hell, when *you* were a kid, you wanted to be an astronaut. Then, one day, we grew up and realized we were destined for more traditional careers like lawyers, accountants or *gasp* social media consultants. Yeah, we didn’t end up quite as sexy as we hoped we would in those days of being of single-digit age.

Today, my son and I watched Shuttle Discovery land online at NASA TV. He loved it and promptly said, “Daddy, I want to fly a spaceship when I get big”. I invited him over to watch after discovering that yet another NASA initiative was using social media. They were using Twitter (@STS124), in this case, to tweet the landing.

This is not the first time in recent weeks that NASA has used social media. The Phoenix lander on Mars is still sending tweets back from the Red Planet – though we obviously believe this is some savvy user or group of users in Houston Pasadena, CA and not the lander itself.

Though NASA TV broadcasts on almost every cable or satellite outlet, no one actually turns that on – that I know of. That’s because it’s often as dull and non-compelling as CSPANs programming. However, they are using social media to capture the moments that we will one day look back on and tell our kids about are indeed inspiring the imagination of a new generation who missed out on the space race decades ago.

President Kennedy inspired this imagination on May 25, 1961 when he aggressively informed Congress that he wanted a man on the moon within the decade.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

Today, we have a shuttle launch every few months. We get jarred back to the reality of the danger of the adventure that is space with tragic accidents such as the Challenger or Columbia disasters, but soon enough, going into space becomes, yet again, a routine thing that is not all that riveting.

In 1969, people woke up at 4am to huddle around tiny black and white televisions to watch Neil Armstrong become the first man to step foot on the moon uttering those historic words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Today, we’re huddling around internet-connected computers sharing historic space moments via uStream – where we watched the Mars Landing (SpaceVidCast not officially connected with NASA). We watched the tweet streams come in as we sensed the whole world was watching – again.

NASA is recapturing the imaginations of a generation all over again and using our tools to do it. All the kids are coming back to the show again and we all want to be astronauts. Again.

In 1519, an explorer by the name of Ferdinand Magellan began a journey that would be the first of it’s kind. He would lead an expedition that would circle the globe for the first time. It would cost him his Portuguese citizenship, 219 crew members, 4 ships and even his own life. In the process, his expedition would sail through the southern tip of South America, Guam, the Philippines and throughout the Far East. It would be the first trip of its kind.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on horseback from the small port town of St. Louis and headed west to explore the great unknown chunk of land gained from Napoleonic France in the controversial “Louisiana Purchase”. The Louisiana Purchase forgave millions of dollars in French debt as well as provided the critical port city of New Orleans to the United States. However, the territory came with millions of acres of unexplored land.

Notably, after two years of exploration along the Missouri River basin and eventually finding the Pacific Ocean, they returned bringing information and intelligence about the Natives they met and territory they explored. Further exploration would happen in subsequent years cementing the western territories as part of U.S. culture and history.

One hundred-fifty years later, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced to Congress that he wanted the U.S. to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, an ambitious goal that was itself controversial. As history tells us, Neil Armstrong became the first man to lay foot on the moon on July 16, 1969 stating that, “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.

Amazingly, we continue to explore in our innovation. Obviously, I’m one of these geeks that gets into all the new tools and gadgets that some new entrepreneur comes up with but not everybody is. The other night, I spoke at Social Media Club DC and I compared today’s internet with the internet of 10 years ago. Ten years ago, realtime online communication carried a connotation of creepy stalker-like chats on AOL. Today, we have real time communication instantly in so many forms and on so many platforms that the lines blur.

And we don’t really think twice about it.

When I think about the explorers who have gone before us, I see that they explored and discovered and brought something back for the rest of us. Magellan told us about peoples and nations and geography that we did not know existed before. Lewis & Clark showed us just how big the United States really is. Armstrong brought space, the final frontier, to us. Everyone of these explorers added something back to society through their discoveries.

Then they all came back (Well, except Magellan who died en route to coming back). Consolidation took place.

Today we are in another innovative age. I’m proud of my friend (disclaimer: he’s also done contract work for b5media) Keith Casey. When I met him several years ago, he was a die hard developer. He mocked me for using Twitter and now uses it religiously. Today, he is the CTO for WhyGoSolo an upstart company that suddenly has the eyes of the world on them. I feel like I watched somebody grow up in front of me (Keith, no offense, man. You were grown up already)

At this point, I’m thinking some consolidation takes place. Sure there’s the economic consolidation (recession) that people like to talk to. But I think I see consolidation being more of a maturation of what we have. “Now the Moon has been walked on, let’s build a Shuttle and put satellites up there.”